Synopsis:

Since the 1970s, the Site C Dam in northeastern British Columbia's Peace River Valley has been touted by B.C. Hydro and successive governments as necessary to meet the province's increasing energy needs. With its enormous $10 billion price tag, the dam would be the largest public works project in BC history. It would be the third dam on the Peace River, and destroy traditional unceded territory belonging to Treaty 8 First Nations.

Following the last provincial election, the newly appointed NDP government called for a review of the project, but work on the dam continues. This comes after protests by aboriginal groups and landowners, several lawsuits against the government, and federal government intervention to let the dam go ahead. More recently, there has been a call from a United Nations panel to review how the dam will affect Indigenous land.

This book presents the independent voices of citizen experts describing every important impact of the dam, including:

Sustainable energy expert Guy Dauncey on future energy demand, and whether there is likely to be a need for the dam's electricity

An interview with aboriginal activist Helen Knott on the dam's assault on traditional lands and culture, in particular Indigenous women

Agrologist Wendy Holm on the farm land impact — prime horticulture land important to food security and nutrition

Family physician Warren Bell on the effect that loss of traditional way of life and connection to the land has had on the health of aboriginal people

Wildlife biologist Brian Churchill with forty years' experience of studying its land and wildlife

Former environmental minister Joan Sawicki on government cover-ups and smoking guns

Energy industry watchdog Andrew Nikiforuk on the links between dams, fracking and earthquakes

Award-winning broadcaster Rafe Mair on how party politics corrupts political leadership, and the role of activism and civil disobedience in shaping government decision-making

David Schindler, one of the world's foremost water ecologists, explains the role dams like Site C will play in Canada's climate change strategy

Joyce Nelson connects the dots between the Site C dam and continental water sharing plans

Reviews"Wendy Holm brings another perspective to the case against Site C, that of the production of crops." — Nelson Star, January 2018

"A massive, $10 billion hydroelectric dam project on British Columbia’s Peace River could threaten the First Nations peoples who live nearby. This volume dives deep into the potential impacts and decades of governmental cover-ups related to this long-planned project."— John R. Platt, The Revelator, April 2018

"This book provides an organized and rigorous “how to” guide on the intellectual and fact-based opposition to Site C, and in doing this becomes a great model for a book on any long-term protest. Its ambition is to inform on the subject from every possible angle, keeping the Peace River, the region and its people in mind, rather than the expediency of the business and government angle, which is usually given at least equal weight by the mainstream media." — Cathryn Atkinson, Rabble, June 2018

"There is an "elephant in the room" — not the huge white elephant that you see at No-Site C rallies. This elephant is dark and invisible. The government does not talk about it ... No. This elephant is rather more sinister. Wendy Holm confronts it and exposes it. It's about exporting water."— John Gellard, The Ormsby Review, August 2018

"Damming the Peace is an accessible, thoughtful and informative collection of essays that reveal the grave environmental, human and economic costs if the Site C dam is built."— Tim Pelzer, People's Voice, October 2018